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Wednesday, April 18, 2012

2012 A to Z Blogging Challenge: Perseverance

Perseverance is defined as "Steady persistence in adhering to a course of action, a belief, or a purpose; steadfastness."

Anyone who wants to be successful in life needs to persevere. There are always ups and downs, roadblocks, and sometimes seemingly impossible obstacles, but if it's something you want badly enough, you'll persevere and never give up.

Writing is a tough job. It takes a lot of hard work, dedication, patience and, yes, perseverance. There are the internal obstacles - writer's block, distractions and procrastination, the fear most writers experience that their work won't be good enough or that nobody will read it. Then there are the external struggles - rejections, harsh critics, lack of interest in readers. A lot of people allow these things to prevent them from becoming successful, because they're not willing to really work for what they want.

A couple weeks ago, I talked about how writers need to develop a thick skin, and it's true. I saw a quote from Ernest Hemingway today that I'd never seen before: "There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed." I love this quote, because I'm always saying how I pour my heart and soul into my writing, and bleed the words onto the page. I know this is true for most writers, and because of that, if you don't have a thick skin, and if you let any little thing set you back, you're quickly going to discover that you're in the wrong business. You might as well consider writing a hobby instead of a profession (and there's absolutely nothing wrong with that).

Like anything that's truly worth having in life, you have to work hard and persevere to succeed. If I'd let all the setbacks on my writing journey keep me from pursuing my dreams, I wouldn't be a published author today. I wouldn't be writing articles, and I probably wouldn't even have the confidence to write this blog. There have been countless times when I've wanted to give up, but this is my dream, and I'm living it. I feel like I have no other choice but to persevere because this is the life I chose.

Do you consider yourself someone who perseveres, or do you give up easily? No judgments here, I just like to hear people's stories and perspectives.

5 comments:

It truly depends on what it is I am doing. Sometimes I give up, and other times I tend to persevere... like with this challenge for A to Z - I am a bit baffled that I have made it to P already... and I have the rest of my alphabet planned out...

Now I just need to push some of that stick-to-it-ness to my reading challenges... because I have let my pleasure reading fill up my time! :D

Both, lol. I will push through obstacles and keep plugging away one day, then a week later I'm giving up. But I go right back to it again. Sometimes it's just my mood and whatever else is going on around me. The more I hear people tell me (well, tell writers) to keep going and not give up, the better I feel about my writing and the less likely I'll ever give up on it. :)

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